I don’t think I’d be exaggerating if I were to refer to Twitter as my favorite social network. It’s a downright incredible platform, and an excellent means of communication. As an added bonus, it’s all this without the rather disconcerting privacy concerns of Facebook. It’s where I go to get most of my news on the gaming and tech industries, it’s where I go to promote my writing, and it’s where I go to express those little thoughts that occur to me throughout the day.
Twitter has, I’ve noticed, undergone something of an evolution since I started using it.
It’s much more than 140-character thought-fragments now. Users frequently share articles, images, long-form musings (through applications such as TweetLonger), and even music and videos. In a sense, the platform has evolved beyond its micro-blogging roots. Unfortunately, the interface has remained relatively constant since Twitter’s inception. While this isn’t necessarily a problem on the PC, this can be something of a pain on a mobile device. This is particularly true if you’re following a large number of people. Sorting through all that content can often seem like more trouble than it’s worth.
Not surprisingly, there’s an app for that.
Ladies and gentlemen, introducing Tweetbot. Developed for the iPhone, iPod, and iPad by the folks at Tapbots, Tweetbot bills itself as “a Twitter client with personality.” At first glance, it’s definitely an impressive sight. A recent update has given Tweetbot a rich-media timeline view. Vine, Instagram, and YouTube videos are all displayed right in the stream, with the tweets themselves serving as captions for the content, which can be accessed without having to navigate to another page. The trade-off is that Tweetbot by default omits tweets that don’t include any content outside of text. This feed can be easily toggled on and off at the top of the timeline.
The media-rich newsfeed of Tweetbot isn’t the only thing that’s impressive about it. It also features a function which works in tandem with Twitter’s “lists” feature, allowing for the creation of multiple timelines which can be swapped between at your leisure. If, for example, you’re lounging about at home and you don’t really care to see anything related to work, you can look at your Family or Friends timeline instead of your Co-Workers timeline.
All the basic functionality of Twitter is there, as well, translated masterfully into a mobile format. Swiping to the right, for example, will display the context of whatever tweet you happen to be viewing, while different tap gestures can be set to expand, re-tweet, favorite, reply, or translate a tweet between languages.
Tweetbot is also highly customizable, and the menu bar at the bottom of your feed can be tweaked to your heart’s content. Even better, management of multiple accounts is a breeze. Each account can be custom-tooled with its own personalized settings, and tweeting/re-tweeting from a different account requires nothing more than a simple tap. Admittedly, this is something you should be careful with: the ease with which you can swap between twitter profiles means you could well find yourself sharing something with your colleagues which was meant for your friends.
Tweetbot also includes URL shortening and the ability to seamlessly upload images, links, and videos, in addition to working with several of iOS’s prominent browsing and content consumption apps.
To be honest, there’s only one real problem I can think of with Tweetbot at the moment (though I’ll be spending a bit more time with the application over the coming weeks): it’s not available for Android. Sorry, folks. Unless you have iOS, you’ll have to sit this one out. If you do happen to be using an iPhone, iPad, or iPod to look through your tweets, Tweetbot’s probably one of the best solutions out there. Download it here for iPad, and here for iPhone/iPod.
The PCMech.com weekly newsletter has been running strong for over 8 years. Sign up to get tech news, updates and exclusive content - right in your inbox. Also get (several) free gifts.
